


something to save

by brodinsons (aeon_entwined)



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Terminator (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Terminator Fusion, Body Horror, Cyborgs, Hero Worship, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Protective Quentin Beck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:47:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22065769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeon_entwined/pseuds/brodinsons
Summary: The world as we knew it ended years ago. This is the beginning of what happens after.
Relationships: Quentin Beck/Peter Parker
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	something to save

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Secret Santa gift on our server for @Xinophin! I hope you like it, my friend! I'm so glad our interests happen to coincide with this particular franchise. (It's been my favorite since I was too young to have legally seen the films haha)
> 
> This fic is full of canon-typical violence for the Terminator canon up to and including eroticisized body horror. I’ve endeavored to make it as intro-level as possible for people who haven’t seen the films, but having some surface knowledge of Terminator: Salvation and the characters of Marcus Wright/Kyle Reese would be contextually helpful, as these versions of Quentin and Peter are meant to mirror them. Enjoy!

If only waking up after being _executed_ was the most pressing of his concerns.

Oh no. The world fucking _ended_ while he was on ice and now _homicidal robots_ are roaming the planet with the sole purpose of exterminating the straggling remnants of the human race. 

At least, that’s the story he’s been able to piece together from the shit this kid knows and what they keep picking up on the almost-busted radio from some guy calling himself _Tony Stark_. He knew of a Stark, once upon a time. It might not be the same Stark, or even a familial relation, but the name seems awfully coincidental.

The kid—Peter, is the name he gave—has somehow survived out here in the skeletal remnants of Queens on his own for almost five years. When Quentin asked what sort of shit there was left to eat, Peter had held up some jerky-like meat and quipped: “Two-day-old coyote.”

Thinking he was kidding, Quentin had laughed. Probably mistaking it for amusement instead of shock, Peter had elaborated with: “Heh. Better than three-day-old coyote.”

Quentin knows better now. Hell, he knows better about a lot of things.

He knows the machine he ran into on his first day out in the wild is called a T-600. They’re large, slow-moving, and can be briefly disabled by stabbing something sharp into the cortex at the back of their metal neck. There are plenty of others, courtesy of the rogue A.I. Skynet, but he hasn’t encountered any yet. 

For the most part, the cyborg apocalypse is surprisingly...boring. He stays with Peter and gives the kid some human company he’s apparently been craving for years, if the way he immediately latches onto Quentin when he settles down for the night is anything to go by. Quentin, for his part, doesn’t mind. He tries not to make a big deal out of always taking the first watch, and then invents explanations for why he’s still awake when Peter finally rouses in the early morning hours. 

It’s strange. He doesn’t feel tired, ever. He’ll nap, here and there, but he hasn’t properly _slept_ since before the execution. And that was fifteen years ago, if Peter’s claim of the year being twenty-eighteen is correct. Maybe he’s actually dead, and this is just purgatory. Or it could be Hell. But why would someone with a recognizable name exist here, if that were the case?

Quentin tries not to think about it too often, unless he wants to send himself into a mental spiral. Instead, he focuses on Peter. The kid is absolutely _brilliant_ where machinery is concerned. He has all sorts of little gadgets and weapons and tripwires set up around his self-proclaimed shelter. And they work, considering they’ve kept him alive for the last however many years. 

“Why are you all alone, anyways?” He asks one afternoon, toeing at some discarded rubble from what looks like engine parts. “Where’s your family? You got a family?”

Peter glances at him very briefly, then flicks his gaze away. He looks smaller than he normally does. Sad, in a way he usually isn’t.

“My parents died,” he says, after a few moments of dry silence. “Terminators. My aunt tried to protect me but we got separated four years ago. I haven’t seen her since. I think Skynet took her.”

He scrubs a sleeve across his nose, valiantly pretending he isn’t crying. Quentin feels somewhat bad for bringing all that up. Granted, he has no fond memories of his own family, but that’s back when things were...normal. It’s understandable why a kid would be torn up over losing his parents to fucking killer robots.

“Hey,” he says, moving close enough to put an awkward hand on Peter’s nearest shoulder. “I’m sorry, kid.”

Without saying anything, Peter turns around and buries his face in Quentin’s chest. Quentin startles, mildly, then cautiously brings his arms up to wrap them around Peter’s slim shoulders. 

“You’ve done good, you know?” He continues, cursing himself for his lack of tact. “All out here on your own against robots trying to kill you? Hell, you’re doing great.”

Peter sniffles into his shirt, and Quentin gives the kid’s unruly curls a gentle pet. 

“Thanks,” Peter mumbles, finally stepping back. “Uh, sorry…”

“Don’t worry about it. Happens to the best of us.”

They fall back into companionable silence for the next couple days, instinctively watching each other between scattered meals just to make sure nothing’s gone amiss. Quentin remains shocked that this kid acts more like an adult older than himself than an actual kid, but all it takes is a refresher of what Peter’s already been through to remind him of how fast the kid’s had to grow up in this new form of hell. 

He usually ends up seated with his back to something solid that affords him a decent lookout post once night falls. According to Peter, the cover of darkness is safer for humans, but it also means the machines make use of their infrared technology to sniff out warm bodies. 

Sometimes, if Peter’s particularly restless, he’ll shuffle down and let the kid use him as an oversized pillow. Peter’s ear usually ends up over the faint _thump_ of his heart, and it tends to calm him right down. 

Quentin sometimes uses his body to shield Peter if he hears the telltale rumbling of approaching engines, but nothing ever gets close enough to pose a real threat. The jagged remnants of skyscrapers and highrises make it difficult for the aerial hunter-killers to maneuver in this part of the city so they’re lucky. 

Mostly.

He’s scavenging engine parts from a few derelict cars when he hears a faint cry of “Beck!” from somewhere north of their little shelter. (And since when did he start thinking of it as _theirs_ , anyway?)

The pounding footsteps reach his ears before much else, but he’s already in full flight or fight. Assume the worst; handle whatever the scenario actually is when it happens.

Peter almost careens directly into him once he rounds the corner of the massive warehouse the street over, and once Quentin manages to steady him, he catches sight of the machine plodding relentlessly after the kid.

It’s not a T-600. The gait is too smooth for that. It looks smaller, leaner. And the fake skin meant to trick humans into thinking it’s one of them looks considerably more believable than the rubber masks belonging to the 600s. There’s no Gatling mounted to its arm, either. So it’s probably not furnished with anything military-grade, save for the fact that its whole body is deadly enough to kill whatever stands between it and its target.

Quentin shudders and gives Peter a shove behind him.

“Go!”

He doesn’t wait to see if the kid actually does what he’s told. Instead, he takes the shotgun slung over his back and starts unloading into the thing’s chest. 

Bullets sink into the chassis and ping wildly off the exposed chrome skull. It doesn’t even blink. Just keeps advancing. Quentin growls and reloads, retreating at a steady pace in what he hopes is the direction of the sinkhole they used to build a trap out of a few weeks ago.

When he runs out of ammo, he waits until the machine is close enough to wind up and use the shotgun as an improvised baseball bat. The machine stumbles, knocked off balance, and Quentin take a moment to wonder if he really packed that much of a punch. 

Then, it’s righting itself, and reaching for him. He scrambles out of range, grabbing the sidearm holstered at his thigh in a makeshift pocket, and unloads half a dozen rounds directly into the Terminator’s face.

He’s too caught up in the frenetic rush of survival to avoid stumbling in a ragged pothole, and that moment of vulnerability is all the machine needs to grab the pistol and shove him into the dust. Quentin lands hard, gasping for a breath as the glowing red eyes set into its skull zero in on him.

He stares death in the face for a second time, and realizes that he regrets it this time. Especially when he hears Peter’s distant cry of his name just before the Terminator pulls the trigger. Fuck.

-

Quentin cracks one eye open, wondering why he’d heard the distinct sound of bullets plinking off metal.

The Terminator is still staring down at him, momentarily perplexed. Then, like a switch in its programming abruptly flips, it unloads another three rounds on him.

Quentin flinches, purely out of reflex, before realizing that the _pings_ are coming from _him_.

He glances down, dread curling like ice in his gut, and sees the terrifyingly familiar gleam of coltan and steel through the shredded mess of his sternum. What the _fuck_? 

“Quentin!”

Peter’s small frame suddenly appears in his field of vision, just behind the Terminator.

Quentin struggles to form the words to tell him to fucking _run_ like he should have the last time he gave the kid the order, but he’s still caught in the paralyzing realization that he’s one of _them_. 

“Quentin, run!”

Peter’s already lunging for the machine and scrambling effortlessly up its back like a human-sized spider. He shoves a makeshift awl into the back of its neck, prompting a garbled rumble of misfiring gears as it locks up and stumbles around. Then he’s leaping free and Quentin’s still on the ground, stunned into silence. 

Saved for a second time.

“Come on!”

Peter’s tugging at his arm now, and only stops when he catches sight of Quentin’s chest.

“Oh ...oh my god—“

“Kid, just get out of here.” Quentin finally forces himself to his feet, letting his hand linger on Peter’s shoulder since he knows it’s probably the last time. “ _Go_. I’ll take care of it.”

Peter grabs for the sleeve of his ill-fitting jacket and misses, but Quentin takes the brief sensation and hoards it greedily as he stalks toward the glitching machine.

“Looks like I surprised you as much as I surprised myself,” he growls, grabbing it by the skull to leverage his newly-discovered strength and send it crashing into the dust. “Let’s see how much your bosses like this.”

He plants a knee in its back and grabs it under the chin, wrenching back with a howl of rage until the protesting metal gives way and the Terminator’s skull detaches with a screech of torn steel. The body falls limp instantly, and Quentin is left staring into crimson optics that slowly fizzle out with a tinny whine.

There.

It’s dead.

He drops the skull to the ground and backs away from the rest of it, one hand reflexively coming up to cover the mess of his chest. Or chassis. Whatever the fuck it’s called on the machines.

He’s not human. But...why does he still _feel_ so human?

Seeing the metal under his own shredded skin didn’t suddenly flip some switch to make him think slaughtering any human in his vicinity sounded like a great idea. If anything, he wants to _stop_ thinking about the metal. Because now he’s wondering how he’s breathing. Does he still have lungs, or is his brain just a bunch of transmitters making him _think_ he’s still breathing? What about his heart? Peter told him how comforting it was to listen to. Is it real? How could it not be? What would the point be to put something that just sounds like a heart in his chest cavity?

Quentin doesn’t even realize he’s edging into a real panic until two small hands are on either side of his face, pulling him down so a pair of chapped lips can press firmly against his own.

What?

“Come back with me,” Peter’s saying, scratching his dirty fingers through Quentin’s beard—why the hell did Skynet leave his beard—as he presses plaintive kisses against his mouth and chin. “Come home. Please…”

Still reeling, Quentin can’t do much but let Peter take his hand away from his chest and physically drag him back to their little sanctuary. 

“This whole place is probably compromised,” he mutters, as Peter lets go of his hand and starts trying to clear a space on the pile of old clothes and towels that serves as a makeshift bed. “They’ve been in my head the whole time. They’ll send more.”

Peter turns around, those shockingly pretty brown eyes as wide and guileless as Quentin’s ever seen them.

“I don’t care,” the kid says, standing taller like it’ll give his claim more impact. “I’ve been on my own out here without anybody to even talk to and then you came along and now you saved me. You _saved me_ , Quentin. I don’t care if Skynet made you. They messed up. They must have left all the good parts if killing a Terminator was your first instinct after you told me to run.”

Quentin opens his mouth to argue, but finds he can’t. Peter has a point. Sure, it’s just one machine in the grand scheme of its operations, but why would they let him do that? Wouldn’t they have just switched him over to kill mode as soon as he realized what he was?

He lets his hands drop to his sides and Peter’s there, tugging him down so he’s forced to sit on the rearranged pile of blankets and let the kid peel the remnants of his shirt away to examine his chest.

Peter’s face goes through a complicated series of expressions, but Quentin doesn’t even flinch as work-roughened fingertips drag over the damaged skin barely covering gleaming bits of metal. 

“Does it hurt?” Peter’s voice is almost a whisper.

Quentin shakes his head. “No. I can’t feel it. I don’t know...why. Maybe they turned off my pain receptors when it shot me or something.”

Peter gasps softly a moment later, and Quentin cranes his neck to get a better look at the kid’s face.

“What?”

Peter doesn’t answer right away, but there’s an odd sensation of _something_ probing between what feels like his upper ribs and he can’t help the reflexive flinch that prompts.

“Sorry,” Peter mumbles, withdrawing his hand. “I just...”

“What?” Quentin presses, again.

“It’s your heart.” Peter finally answers, those slim fingers flexing like he wants to touch whatever he’d been after again. “I...I can see it.”

Caught between disgust and a bit of awe, Quentin tries to get a look at what Peter’s seeing. He can’t get a good angle, so he gives up and flicks his gaze back up to look at the kid. Peter’s biting his lip, and Quentin knows there’s more than one line being crossed when he says: “Go ahead. Touch it.”

It’s certainly not something he could’ve ever predicted getting to experience. But hey...it’s not every day you find out you’re actually an indestructible cyborg under the unnervingly accurate skin covering up the truth.

Quentin swallows thickly as he feels small fingertips prodding cautiously at the very real organ pumping away inside his chest cavity. Peter’s hand is small enough to slip between his steel ribs, and he doesn’t seem to mind the blood getting smeared on him from the damaged skin still covering patches of Quentin’s chest. Jesus…

“Oh my god—” he’s whispering, over and over, like he can’t believe he’s been allowed to do this.

For his part, Quentin sympathizes. He can’t believe any of this is real, period. He can’t believe he’s letting Peter perch on his lap and peel him open like some high school lab experiment. He can’t believe he’s getting _hard_ under the kid’s ass while he stares at the naked awe etched across Peter’s face. He can’t believe the kid hasn’t said anything until Peter’s hips twitch forward and Quentin is abruptly made aware he isn’t the only one.

“S-Sorry,” Peter mumbles, abruptly dropping his eyes off to the side, shame reddening his ears. 

“Don’t be sorry.” Quentin winds an arm around the kid’s waist and moves his free hand to rest lightly over Peter’s crotch. “It’s okay. It’s fine.”

Peter shudders, but lets himself be pulled closer even with all the blood and metal standing out so clearly between them. 

“Keep touching me,” Quentin murmurs, waiting for Peter’s startled gaze to lock back onto his. “I want you to.”

It takes a few moments, but Peter slips his fingers back between Quentin’s ribs and this time they both gasp when he makes contact with Quentin’s heart.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god—”

Quentin isn’t even sure which one of them is saying it. All he can feel is the feather-light pressure of Peter’s fingertips against an organ that shouldn’t even _exist_ anymore, and all he knows is that he needs to hear the kid come. He _needs_ to.

His heart is going double time as he awkwardly manages to get Peter’s fly undone one-handed, and the moan he gets as Peter lurches into the fingers wrapping around his dick is sweeter than any music he’s ever encountered. 

“It’s beating faster,” Peter gasps, struggling to balance himself on Quentin’s lap as he rocks into Quentin’s hand. “Oh, god, are you doing that?”

“I don’t have any control over my fuckin’ heart, kid,” Quentin laughs harshly, squeezing Peter’s dick and feeling said organ give an odd lurch as Peter’s fingers nudge a little deeper into the tissue than before. 

Peter falls off into incoherent whimpers and moans, struggling to keep touching Quentin’s heart and thrust into his grip at the same time. For as much experience as he has, nothing he’s ever done could even come close to this.

It seems like Peter’s orgasm catches him by surprise, and as Quentin tries to milk the aftershocks out of him, the kid grabs hold of the ribs under his hand just to stay upright.

The sudden _jerk_ in that odd place prompts Quentin’s own orgasm to abruptly blindside him, leaving him blinking fractals out of his vision while Peter whines softly against his shoulder.

Fucking hell. 

He pulls his hand out of Peter’s fly and wraps both arms around the kid’s back. Peter doesn’t even seem to care that he’s getting blood smeared across his jacket. He just collapses against Quentin’s chest with the most grateful moan he can muster.

“I’m gonna keep you safe,” Quentin mutters into Peter’s hair, trying to ignore the odd shudder in his chest as the kid lays a hand against his ribs. “Doesn’t matter where we go. I’m gonna protect you.”

Peter shoves his nose against Quentin’s throat, winding his other hand tight into the remnants of his shirt. 

“I know,” he says, like it’s the simplest truth in the world.

“I know.”


End file.
